Sonos Five Smart Speaker Review

[testp]

What is the old pilot line? Any airplane landing that you can walk out of is a success?

correct, this was NTSB first law

 

[RobL]

It’s curious that the Apple Homepod bested this in the Olive Score…just bass extension?

 

[Kanenas]

I said most continuous, not heaviest. While the speaker does need to support an OS, the continuous demands from that are relatively modest (no active browsers, no display, no significant UI, etc). The "networking" functions, while continuous, are not computationally demanding. The DSP demands are continuous and computationally heavy in realtime.

Or if you're suggesting the MT8521 is not doing DSP, what might you suggest *is* doing the DSP processing then? The DAC is a PCM1690 which has no DSP resource. I see no other processor on the board.

We're both speculating of course. A power consumption per process/function chart would tell the true story, and while Sonos no doubt has such a document, we'll surely never see it.

I agree we are both guessing, but probably you are ahead of me the two TI DACs are not DSP capable and I doubt the MT8521 has any native cores for that.

 

[nick-v]

I've always been genuinely impressed with SONOS speakers (for what they are). I've recommended them to many friends that aren't OCD about audio, but want good sound. I've sold and installed a number of SONOS systems as well through my integration company. I've heard the Five set up as a stereo pair a number of times, and have always been very impressed.

Having said that, wouldn't the best way to measure this speaker be in it's vertical orientation and set up as a "stereo pair" with another unit?

In that mode, I belive the two outside tweeters are disabled, and just the single tweeter plays.

 

[dsnyder0cnn]

Although I'm a fan, I'm more than a little surprised that the 5 fared so well under Amir's testing. Nice work!

The SONOS (PLAY:5)/5 has long been my standard "lifestyle" speaker recommendation. I've seen many photos of "audiophile" systems that are poorly setup with terrible room acoustics and thought that they would actually be better off with one or two 5s. Same goes for systems that are almost entirely used for background music. Unless one needs a lot more SPL (few do, except for big parties), the 5 is more than adequate for most folks, including some audiophiles…although they will never admit it. :-D

 

[amirm]

Having said that, wouldn't the best way to measure this speaker be in it's vertical orientation and set up as a "stereo pair" with another unit?

I wanted to measure it the way it is usually used.

 

[Jim - where is The Abyss]

We have a couple Sonos speakers and I consider them trash. Now that I think about it I think I will replace them.

 

[jeffme]

For a long time I, like many audiophiles, dismissed Sonos gear as middle of the road performance designed for the uninformed convenience market.... I recently convinced myself that 16/44.1 was more than adequate for my needs (I'm 68 in 2 weeks) ...the old Sonos Connect streamer was bit perfect... second hand at ... only US$50 each ... great results.

With age comes wisdom. As an ASR Mandalorian would say: this is a way.

 

[jeffme]

... in a thread where someone was comparing these to Genelec Studio Monitors....

here you go - Sonos Play 5 vs Genelec 8361A - this was the thread that really made me surprised there weren't better measurements of the Five. Hats off to @amirm!

 

[FrantzM]

We have a couple Sonos speakers and I consider them trash. Now that I think about it I think I will replace them.

What model of trash do you have? How much do you want for your trash?

Peace.

 

[Grooved]

The long latency rules out any movie use.

Hi Amir,

Not sure if it works for all Sonos speakers, but there was a trick to avoid latency with Line-in use.
Latency comes from network buffering to play in sync with multiple speakers. If you set it via Ethernet (not WiFi), and then disconnect the cable, it will not see any network and won't create a buffer -> no latency

 

[A Surfer]

I have a Sonos system with two Five's, two of their Subs, one Arc for a centre channel and two Move's. Really nice system. I sold off all of my major gear because how I listen to music has changed and now I find the lifestyle system approach more than adequate, I find it fantastic actually. I actually made friends online with an engineer from Sonos who was intimately involved with the development of the Five if memory serves me correctly. Sonos do things quite well in my opinion and experience.

 

[Snickers-is]

SONOS Five Listening Test
I chose to listen to the Five in near-field at about 2+ meters/5 feet. First impression was most impressive. We are talking almost the same accuracy of a studio monitor! Sound was clean, and tonality was right on the money. Bass notes were deep and so much so that they activated the room modes, sounding a bit tubby at times. I made an attempt to reduce that by lowering the hump at 180 Hz and that helped a bit. Forgot to save it though.

I did hear these a while back, probably in a larger room than you heard them in, but my experience was that even if the room adaptive EQ-thing was quite effective, the resonances in the speaker itself were quite easy to detect. My general experience with resonances that are fairly well masked by the undistorted part of the output, is that the perceived sound is without any fault you can easily put your finger on, but still, the sound tends to loose colour and be very flat. A bit like in speakers with very high dynamic loss.

I would say they are great for "easy listening" at low levels, but for critical listening, they are one of the less attractive options out there. I also did not experience the bass you write about. This may be due to their brick-wall dynamic EQ from around 50Hz. My experience was that they have no bass, but they have some low mid to compensate for it. It would probably be better in a smaller room.

For people looking to expand their Sonos system, sure, but for monitoring or best possible sound quality, there are tons of affordable studio monitors out there that will do a far better job, even at a significantly lower price point IMO.

 

[OldTimer]

Last time I had considered this before buying Apple Homepod but the apple device give free 6 months apple music subscription.
It’s an amazing monopoly from Apple corporation, beginning from the source/content until the speakers. And also Dolby Atmos can only be from Apple TV.

 

[MZKM]

Reserved.

 

[eriksson]

Thanks for the review Amir.
Perhaps this is the solution to the horrible sound in my RV... would be fun to try.

 

[Jim - where is The Abyss]

What model of trash do you have? How much do you want for your trash?

Peace.

Unfortunately, I bought them for my wife. Sonus 1, I think I paid about $200/each. They'd have to be shipped from Canada but if you are interested make me an offer and I will try to convince her to sell.

EDIT: Thank you, I think you have inspired me to go down the rather fun rabbit hole of finding a cool vintage receiver/speakers set and a music streamer!

 

[jeffme]

It’s curious that the Apple Homepod bested this in the Olive Score…just bass extension?

I believe those scores are heavily impacted by the difficulties in measuring the Five's performance about 10KHz. As a result (I think) the Five's preference scores are deceptively low.

 

[beagleman]

Say what you want but this is some incredible garbage going on when looking at the distortion chart. It doesn't produce any bass, it produces harmonic distortions below 100Hz.
Typical case of trying to achieve the 'with sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine'. DSP doesn't fix physics.

?????

I am not "into" this type of product at all, but give credit where it is due..

This is frankly quite decent for what it is, size wise and price wise.


Amir heard it and said:

"SONOS however, goes way beyond that requirement and produced an excellent sounding speaker that is powerful with very deep bass. Its response is not perfect but comes close to being accurate especially for this class. Side-firing tweeters provide the spacious and wider dispersion that such a speaker needs to have. And triple woofers provide the impressive dynamics."

 

[JustCoolin‘]

They sound better than what the very vast majority of people (outside of this forum) have at home these days, so I find the “only good for casual listening” comments a tad dismissive. I have Neumann monitors at home, but I could live with a pair of Sonos 5 if I had to.

I don’t like how they phase out the support for older models though, so Sonos is a no go for me.